Telephonic communication between persons may involve the exchange of information that is required to be precise. Examples of such information include telephone numbers, spelling of persons' names, street addresses, ZIP codes, flight reservation codes, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc.
Because of different accents and different spellings of words, orally communicating this type of information between persons can be time consuming and socially awkward. For example, even between native English speakers, the pronunciation of letters, such as A, I or R, may vary considerably. The French language can also be problematic in these situations. In particular, the different accents of persons speaking French may make it difficult to clearly differentiate between different words. For example, it may be difficult to differentiate between the word for the number “cent” (one hundred) and the word for the number “cinq” (five) because the final letter in “cinq” is usually silent. In some settings, asking a person to repeat or spell out their last name may be considered offensive.